"Color is our perception — our interpretation of the light that's in the world," Arthur Shapiro, a professor at American University who specializes in visual perception, told USA TODAY in 2015.

"Individual wavelengths don't have color, it's how our brains interpret the wavelengths that create color," he says. In the case of the dress, some of us interpret those wavelengths to be blue and black, and others interpret the wavelengths as white and gold.

"In reality, it's light coming off of the computer screen, and then our brain interprets it and those interpretations can differ," according to Shapiro.